The younger brother of Joseph de Maistre, a noted philosopher and counter-revolutionary, Xavier was born to an aristocratic family at Chambéry in October 1763.

By then, Suvorov's patron Catherine II of Russia had died, and the new monarch Paul I dismissed the victorious general (partly on account of the massacre of 20,000 Poles after he conquered Warsaw).

On his brother's arrival in St. Petersburg, Xavier de Maistre was introduced to the Minister of the Navy, and was appointed to several posts including director of the Library, and of the Museum of Admiralty.

He writes: "When I travel through my room, I rarely follow a straight line: I go from the table towards a picture hanging in a corner; from there, I set out obliquely towards the door; but even though, when I begin, it really is my intention to go there, if I happen to meet my armchair en route, I don't think twice about it, and settle down in it without further ado."

Most of his other works are of modest dimensions; these include In 1839, after the publication of a French edition of La Jeune Sibérienne (1825), Maistre went on a long journey to Paris and Savoy.